Exploring the Technologies of Laboratory Science for Social Change: an Examination of the Nigerian Healthcare System
Author(s)
Afolabi, Michael O. S.
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Abstract
Contemporary healthcare constitutes a critical response to the dilemma of health and
disease that is partly instinctual and partly organizational. Although Africa faces a
number of daunting health challenges, an essential factor which continues to decelerate
the efficacy of her healthcare system is that a larger proportion of diseases is hidden from
view in the community (Agharanya, 1987; Park, 2005). Against this background, this
paper examines and explores how some of the technologies of medical laboratory science
may be used to exact novel changes in the structure of the Nigerian health-care system
vis-à-vis a better confrontation of diseases. In other words, we seek feasible means
through which relevant diagnostic, prognostic or therapeutic knowledge generated in the
laboratory may be transferred from the bench to the patient. While this scheme should
facilitate the evolvement of a laboratory that goes beyond traditional means in
contributing to outcomes measurement of patients from cradle to grave (Forsman, 1996),
it should also reinforce the overall competence of the healthcare system.
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Date
2009-10-07
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Text
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Proceedings